Civil rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer’s Presidential Medal of Freedom is now on display at the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson.
Museum officials announced Tuesday that the medal is available for the public to view after it was donated by Hamer’s family to the Mississippi Department of Archives and History last year.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to Hamer by former commander-in-chief Joe Biden in January 2025 in recognition of her lasting impact on the civil rights movement. Biden described Hamer as “one of the most powerful voices of the civil rights movement” as she fought for voting rights – enduring beatings and arrests – for Black Americans.
“I am gratified that Aunt Fannie’s Presidential Medal of Freedom will be exhibited in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum,” said Marilyn Mays, Hamer’s niece. “Her courage and perseverance in the face of adversity are a shining example of patriotism and a reminder of our responsibility to safeguard our rights and freedoms for all and for future generations.”
One year after the award was given to Hamer’s family, the medal is now among a small number of Presidential Medals of Freedom associated with civil rights leaders that are accessible to the public. Hamer’s award is on display in the “I Question America” gallery in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum.
“Displaying Fannie Lou Hamer’s Presidential Medal of Freedom allows visitors to reflect on the extraordinary courage and influence of her activism,” Two Mississippi Museums Director Michael Morris said. “Presenting this medal at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum is especially meaningful, as it connects a national honor to the place and movement that shaped her life’s work.”
Monica Land, also Hamer’s niece and the producer of the documentary “Fannie Lou Hamer’s America,” said the family chose to donate the medal so it could be shared publicly and encourage visitors to learn more about the civil rights leader’s life, legacy, and the sacrifices she made in the fight for voting rights.
“I am so happy we were able to gift this award to the museum and to the people of Mississippi,” Land said. “Aunt Fannie Lou loved Mississippi and, hopefully, this donation will spark or further interest in her life and all that she fought so hard to accomplish for all people – not just Black people.”
Fannie Lou Hamer’s legacy
Hamer was born Fannie Lou Townsend in 1917 in rural Montgomery County into a family of sharecroppers, and she grew up working on a plantation. After she attended a meeting held by members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1962, she eventually became an organizer.
In 1963, Hamer and several others were severely beaten by local law enforcement after they returned from a voter registration workshop in South Carolina. The assault left Hamer with lifelong injuries.
Hamer was the co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which attempted to seat an interracial delegation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. In her testimony before the credentials committee, she described the opposition and threats she and other Black people faced for attempting to vote, before declaring: “I question America.”
That testimony and the activities of Freedom Summer 1964, which she also helped organize, were among the factors leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And, years later, Hamer was a member of the first integrated Mississippi state delegation at the Democratic National Convention in 1968. Hamer died in 1977 at the age of 59.